


Home

by Nevi



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: F/M, Mild Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-18
Updated: 2015-03-05
Packaged: 2018-03-13 12:27:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3381503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nevi/pseuds/Nevi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set at the end of Awakening.  Warden Alistair returns to Vigil's Keep and gets a warmer welcome than he expected.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Home

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the epilogue slide that mentions the warden being reunited with Alistair, her true love. Despite said warden not actually romancing anyone. Previously part of a collection.

The knock at the door doesn’t stir her; neither does the light of the hall that filters in as it opens. He’s not surprised from what the other warden’s spoke, even if their words were barely understood awash as they were in ale. But he had appreciated the warm welcome their jovialness had lent them, brushed with victory as they were. Ohgren had even managed to convince him to stay for a small time, to have a drink with them to listen to their tales too outlandish to be anything but true. But the whining at his side and a flutter in his chest pulled him away as the mabari forced his attention toward the rooms further in the keep.

“Okay Dragon, there she is.” The light from the hall cuts sharp against the shadows of the room and over her sleeping form. Alistair watches from the door as the large hound makes his way to her, nose snuffling at the blankets covering her, searching for the hand or face of his master.

“Dragon?” Her voice is thick with sleep and Dragon’s backside wiggles in triumph as he places two massive paws on the side of the bed. Alistair is momentarily concerned as he’s sure the frame groans under the weight of the warhound.

Amell sits up slowly a grin spreading across her face as her hands scratch at the hound’s ears before throwing her arms around the creature’s neck. “Dragon! Oh, how I missed you.” Minutes pass before she looks toward the door, her eyes meeting his, shining in the light.

“Alistair...”

He barely has time to register her movement as she pulls herself from the bed and tumbles into his arms. Dragon dances around them both. This, this isn’t quite how he thought his return would go.  Once her beloved hound had been returned he expected to be politely turned from her quarters and perhaps back to the drinking that was no doubt still continuing down the hall. But he cannot say this isn’t what he wants as he pulls her close and buries his face in her hair, hair that smells of lavender and elfroot and his chest constricts with just how right she feels in his arms.

They stand there like that for a long time, maybe too long to be appropriate for even friends and it’s with a heavy sigh he begins to pull away, but before he can her lips find his.

It’s a chaste kiss at first, tentative and questioning, rocks thrown into a well to see how deep it goes. He can’t say he’s never kissed her before. He had once, on impulse. Oh she had been cordial about it but he felt the fool as she quickly walked away afterward. It had been brash for him to assume, to hope she might feel the same way. Besides they had a blight to battle and there was little time for romance. He may have been born a (bastard) prince, but life had certainly never been a fairy tale.

Now however, now her lips grow hungry against his and the flutter in his chest has become the beat of Griffon wings as his hand grazes across the thin fabric of her sleeping clothes. He’s not sure when the door behind him closes, the hound left unhappily in the hall. His mind is heavy with exhaustion in the late hour but if this is a dream he doesn’t wish to wake.

Her hands are calloused from years wielding a staff but her body is soft, someone who dances with magic rather than blades.

Her teeth tug on his bottom lip pulling him closer, deeper and he thinks of long nights on watch when she’d fall asleep with her head nestled on his shoulder, Dragon resting at their feet.

Her fingers play with the buckles of his amour, piece by piece left at the edge of the bed. Her clever tongue speaking incantations along his neck, the underside of his jaw as his fingers skim along her thigh, his hand fisting into the thin linen of her bedclothes.

A small wishful whisper in the back of his mind would have preferred this to be his first time, her to be the one to first touch him like this and a sliver of revulsion threatens to rise as dark promises encroach. But before it can gain a hold on him she whispers his name and it ignites a fire in his belly, burns away the potential for regret.

She is a warm beacon in the cold night, a pyre lighting the way home and when he enters her it’s with quiet relief. There is no hurry now, none of the frantic need of one skirting life’s blade. The Archdemon is dead, and they are… they are alive. They move with lazy pace, steady and slow like the waves at low tide. He murmurs her name, lips and teeth against skin, breathes in again and again the scent of lavender and elfroot. Feels as the magic in her blood ignites, as her fingers spread across his back and the cool tingle of her healing soaks into his muscles, knots unfurling with a soft moan and he captures her mouth with his again and again. Her eyes are a deep sea and he loses himself as she pulls him closer tightening around him, his name on her lips.

In the quiet moments afterward she wraps her arms around him, presses her face into his chest as the first strands of morning cut against the high windows of the room.

He doesn’t know what the day will bring but for now this is enough. He lets the rise and fall of her breath guide him into sleep as he pulls her closer, her quiet whisper against his skin.

_“Welcome home.”_


	2. Home Redux

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is the same story as the previous but written from Amell's POV. We'll call it a writing experiment. Both stories stand-alone.

It’s the sound of nails on the stone floor that rouse her before the wet nose of the hound clips hers and the bed groans under the beasts weight. She swallows hard under the mass of blankets. The nightmares of the day being chased away by the light that filters in from the hall. The light that blinds her tired eyes as she tries to focus.

“Dragon?” Her tongue feels thick. But she is rewarded with a whine and another push of his heavy snout against her cheek.

“Dragon! Oh how I missed you.” His fur is coarse and she runs her fingers through it, scratches his ears and buries her face in his neck. He needs a bath but she doesn’t care. The day had been filled with losses, a city nearly lost, a keep half buried in rubble. The others had decided to celebrate their ‘Victory’ but the word felt hollow in her mouth. In the end she spent the night writing letters of condolence while the others drank; wrote until she could no longer see the words written on the page. Words that became lost in spilled ink and spilled tears.

So she allows herself this one happiness. This reunion with her faithful Mabari. Her faithful hound whom she has not seen in weeks, not since she’d sent him with –

“Alistair.”

She moves with sudden energy, heart jumping into her throat as she nearly runs from the bed and throws her arms around him. Dragon bounces happily around their legs, inadvertently pushing her closer into Alistair. The metal of his breast plate is cold against her cheek as she tucks her head beneath his chin. She has never been so happy to see someone in her life. His presence grounds her, his warm breath against her hair telling her this is not a dream. He is back. He has returned.

To her.

The thought pulls at her, a warmth that radiates from a heart she had long ago thought turned to stone. And when he begins to pull away, she doesn’t think.

She acts.

She has always been terrible at weighing the consequences of her actions; but in this moment she doesn’t care. He is here and he is real. She can feel his pulse, his life blood as her thumbs brush along his jaw and her lips find his.

He tastes of the road, salted meats and warm ale and a pleased moan escapes her when he finally kisses her back just as hungrily.

Her heart hammers in her chest, breaking down old walls. Walls that had built themselves one stone at a time. Jowan’s lie. Cullen’s angry words that cut deeper than she let anyone know. Every innocent they failed to save. Every cut across her throat and arms made in a desperate attempt to keep someone else breathing. Her pact made with Morrigan in the dark hours of what should have been her death.

It all falls away as his fingers twist in the fabric of her bedclothes along her hip. As he pushes just as much as she does.

Dragon is moved unhappily to the hall. She will have to make it up to him later with some mabari crunch.

Her hands still remember the clasps of his armour. Nights of careful extraction from the cumbersome pieces to treat a wound from a darkspawn blade or a bandit’s arrow. He trails kisses along her neck as his armour is left piece by piece at the edge of the bed.

When she encourages him to follow her onto the bed he tenses.

She swallows hard at the haunted look that crosses his features. She knows what thought has crossed his mind and it is her fault. It is always her fault.

“Alistair?”

A thousand apologies are on her tongue and she looks away. Maybe this isn’t right. She was being selfish again. Always acting without thinking. He deserves better. They all deserve better.

The pressing claws of doubt dig into her. But when he lifts her jaw and meets her gaze she sees only reverence, and a conviction that steals her breath and leaves tears threatening to fall in its wake.

His lips are softer when they brush against hers. More tentative than before. They move slowly, with limbs heavy from exhaustion, with wounded hearts. She bites back a cry when he enters her. He is warm and solid. Her hands splay across his back, across knotted muscle and she explores the map of old scars along his skin with cautious fingers. He moans against her neck when she sinks healing magic into the tired muscle.

His hands explore her body, calloused fingers between her legs and across her breasts. Tongues that tangle between the push of teeth and chapped lips. Fingers that tangle in hair that has gotten longer than she remembers. There is a fire building in the friction, burning away doubt and fear, all of the horrors of the past. It is just him and her and a swelling behind her breast, a heart that beats with the strength of a dragon.

And she remembers a rose and a stuttered conversation. She didn’t deserve him then, doesn’t deserve him now, but she has never been so happy to have her arms wrapped around him. To pull him closer and closer until like the flower she unfurls beneath him, feels him do the same. She whispers promises into his skin and he kisses her brow, her tired eyes.

The morning dawn is rising, soft pink light cutting across the high windows. He lays on his back an arm wrapped loosely around her. They are quiet for a long time and she thinks maybe he has fallen asleep; she presses her cheek to his chest and wraps her arms tighter around him and whispers:

“Welcome Home.”

He presses her closer and she smiles.

She lets the steady rhythm of his beating heart, the rise and fall of his breath guide her into sleep.


End file.
